


spending all my nights alone (waiting for you to call me)

by dancingthru



Category: Supergirl (TV 2015)
Genre: Angst, F/F, Huge angry idiots in love, Two Dumb Idiots, this shit is fairly angsty my b
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-09
Updated: 2019-12-09
Packaged: 2021-02-25 06:01:55
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,536
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21731269
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dancingthru/pseuds/dancingthru
Summary: A night in which Kara and Lena fall together and apart.
Relationships: Kara Danvers/Lena Luthor
Comments: 18
Kudos: 253





	spending all my nights alone (waiting for you to call me)

**Author's Note:**

> title (and story somewhat) inspired by sugar by brockhampton:
> 
> spending all my nights alone, waiting for you to call me  
> you're the only one I want by my side when I fall asleep  
> tell me what I'm waiting for  
> tell me what I'm waiting for  
> know it's hard, but we need each other  
> know it's hard, but we need each other

It started with a momentary lapse in control.

An exhausted, fed up collapse. Lena knew she'd regret it immediately, knew that in the minutes she spent eyeing the watch before finally, eventually grabbing it, slamming the button and flinging it across the room. Something in her was a touch disappointed when she didn't hear a single telltale noise of damage when it skittered across the floor.

She hated the sound of Kara dropping onto the balcony even more.

"You called?"

Lena downed the rest of her drink — what number was this? five? — and blew out a quick, harsh lungful of air. 

"I thought we should talk." She gestured sarcastically with the glass, grabbing at the decanter sloppily, almost spilling it and then setting the bottle upright. "I'm tired and drunk and stupid enough to think we should talk."

"I can go."

"Don't be stupid." Kara looked nervous and Lena hated it. She hated the way she was tugging at her fingers, the way she was refusing to come more than a few inches closer. She hated seeing any of Kara — _her_ Kara — in Supergirl. "Come here."

"Lena, I want you to know—"

"Don't tell me things." The highball class clattered out of Lena's hand as she stood to face Kara, teeth bared slightly. "Don't, just— don't think you can tell me things."

"Okay."

"Stop pacifying me." Lena's eyes flared and she stepped closer. Kara held up her hands, shoulders raising slightly, eyes darting around as if planning for an escape that should be easy but seemed somehow lethally dangerous.

"I'm sorry, I'm not—"

"God, what's wrong with you?" Lena punctuated the third word with a sudden, violent stab to the chest with a single pointer finger. Kara's eyes widened slightly, looking down to where Lena's finger remained lodged against her sternum. Lena's eyes followed. "I mean—" she stabbed again "who—" another stab "do you think—" this time it was a fist crashing into her chest "—you are?"

Lena stared up at Kara, lips curling back slightly over her teeth. She struck Kara's chest again, and again, harder each time until Kara finally grabbed at her wrists.

"Lena, enough—"

It devolved into an odd game, Kara catching Lena’s wrists and then releasing them immediately, afraid to grab hold for longer than a heartbeat at the risk of bruising or breaking her bones. 

It was almost careless, she thought, to be this fragile. How could one person be so easy to break and yet so sharp along the edges all at once? Every inch of the facade that made up Lena Luthor had been so carefully and delicately constructed, and now Kara had shattered it like a shell of glass. She had known that breaking Lena’s heart would hurt, would perhaps end both of their innocence, but she somehow didn’t prepare itself for the mess of its aftermath. Perhaps she was too naive, too hopeful, too trusting. Or maybe (and this she knows to be true, even if she won’t ever let herself fully form the words, not even in the quiet of her own mind) she was just too terrified to ever actually imagine a world without Lena right beside her.

Lena wrenched herself free from Kara’s limp fingers yet again, beat her fist against the crest of El.

“Lena.”

Again with the game. Her fingers latched around Lena’s wrists, pushed her arms away, immediately retracting her grip. Lena beat out the same rhythm against her chest.

“Lena, you’re going to hurt yourself.”

In desperation, Kara began to back peddle, drawing her torso away and timing her movements to soften the blows of Lena’s attempted onslaught. It worked for a moment, but then her back hit the wall of the terrace. Lena crowded into her space immediately, pressing her palms flat against her chest and shoving. _Hard_. Kara registers the violence of it, even though it hardly fazes her. Lena pressed her hands deep into her chest again, just below her collarbone, and this time it dislodged something between a grunt and a snarl and a sob from her throat.

"Please stop."

" _Make me_."

It was feral, uncontrolled. Before Kara had reveled at the softness of Lena but now she was drowning in the ferocity, in the complete lack of care. Her hair was unbrushed and unkempt, tumbling half into her face as she tried her damndest to crack Kara's skin, malleable as marble, with her shaking hands. She leaned her body weight into her fists, let herself slump until her forehead almost rested against Kara's clavicle, then whipped her head back to reveal eyes red with stale tears and brimming with fresh ones.

"Lena, I can't—"

"Fight back you fucking coward, fight back you fucking liar, fight back you—"

The slap came almost out of nowhere. It would've shocked any human, landed clear and plain against the cheek, left a mark that might have swollen up red and puffy. Instead, Kara turned her head, cushioned the blow as deftly as she could.

Lena's fingers on her face didn't hurt, not at all, but they stung nonetheless. The indignant anger — that little defensive voice that had piped up in her weakest moments — flickered low in Kara's stomach, dangerously hot despite her best attempts to smother it. Then Lena raised her hand again and the fire leapt high, heat boiling up under Kara's skin, filling her throat with a flush.

Before she could think, before she could breathe, Kara snatched at Lena's arms, gripping her biceps tightly in a half-controlled vice. She swiveled, slammed them both into the terrace wall. For a single, vindictive moment, she let her full weight crush into Lena, forcing her to gasp for a swallow of air the moment that she rocked back onto her heels. They were close enough that Kara could dissect the terror from all of the fury in Lena's eyes, and it made her sick to her stomach, the reminder that every human she loved would always harbor the slightest fear of her. Her fingers fell slack again, but she did the best to shift all of the steel into her voice.

"You don't want to fight me."

Kara hated the way her voice lilted out, all breathy and desperate. Hated the way Lena's lip curled, the way her eyes darted manically to avoid Kara's eyes, settling instead on her forehead, her shoulder, her cheek, her lips, before finally meeting her gaze dead-on. Hated the way that she knew, instinctively, that Lena didn't mean any of this, that she was buying vital seconds of time in order to restore the composure that Kara had temporarily shaken.

"Oh believe me, Supergirl, I want nothing more."

And she hated, hated, hated that. The coldness, the humiliating detachment, the absolute petty _facade_ of refusing to call Kara by her name. As if she was a stranger. As if they had never existed. 

It made something twist in Kara's gut, something dangerous in its desperation. It was familiar, too. At first, Kara hadn't been able to place it, couldn't believe that she'd ever felt something so foul before in her life. She'd been angry, she'd been petulant, she'd lost control in a hundred ways. She remembered the pain and the jealousy and the heartbreak of losing Mon-El. She remembered the abhorrent helplessness of losing her family. This cut differently, simmering low and hot and seething in her belly.

Then, the fifth time that Lena had ever called her Supergirl, something shifted and then clicked into place all at once. This twinge of curdling fury felt like a shadow of red kryptonite, a softened mirror of the all-consuming rage that she had worked years to forget. It filled her in the same way, a heat that spread from her lungs to her fingertips to her ears, hanging with a surprising weight.

And it rose now, even as she fought it, even as she did her best to remind herself that Lena was right, that she _deserved_ this.

"Don't _call_ me that."

Lena's eyes flashed. Kara had seen that look before, plenty of times. On game nights, when their team went down on the scoresheet and Lena was quickly strategizing how to rally. At L-Corp, when Kara's lunch visit bled over into an afternoon of challenging teleconferences, staying just a handful of minutes longer on that couch to pretend to edit an article while Lena barked into her phone. It was just shy of anger, a glimmer of a smile touching the corners of her eyes at the promise of a challenge.

"Make me stop, then."

This was what Lena wanted all along. That realization dawned slowly, with a sickly sluggishness. Kara resented how long it took her to catch on, but she was also starting to understand that when it came to Lena, she was always slow on the uptake.

Kara tried her hardest to fight the anger. She pressed her lips together hard, clamped her teeth down upon her bottom lip to keep any words from tumbling out. She wanted to tell Lena to shut up. She wanted to beg her to stop being cruel. She wanted to say so, so many things but she was afraid that if she started out, even with something infinitesimally small, everything else would come pouring out, and she'd never be able to stop.

Lena, meanwhile, was still pretending to not be afraid of anything. Even Kara. Especially Kara. She clenched her jaw as if to prove her strength. 

"Come on, Supergirl. Take the words from my mouth."

It was all so fake. That sneer, the sharp edge of her voice. Kara could see through it so effortlessly, so easily. Lena trembled from head to toe, drawn so taut that she couldn't control the tremors that racked her hands, her lungs, with each intake of breath. She was ragged with exhaustion and anger and loss. Her eyes shifted ever so slightly, trying her best to read Kara's face, trying to predict how she would be betrayed next, fully ready to withstand the impact of whatever blow was to come. 

It was enough to break any heart, even one as strong as Kara's. Especially one as strong as Kara's. In this moment, she wanted nothing more than to scoop Lena into her arms, shield her until she felt no need to be impenetrable anymore. But even more, she was consumed by a selfish need to hear Lena say her name. Just once, she swore, that would be enough, even if it was the last time, even if it was the only time ever again. 

Maybe that's why Kara weakened for a second. She had been stolidly leaned back onto her heels, keeping Lena pressed firmly away from her, pressing her back into the terrace wall on just the wrong side of too hard, enough that she could feel Lena tensing. But now, Kara let herself slump slightly in again, let her arms fall just slack enough to tilt them back towards each other. 

Maybe Lena felt the shift. Maybe she saw the softness in Kara's eyes. Or maybe she would've bristled anyways, would've tilted her chin upwards like a stubborn child regardless of whatever Kara chose to do.

"Must you really force me to do everything?"

Kara shouldn't have been surprised when Lena rocked forwards onto her toes. She had to do so, because she was bare-footed and Kara was in her suit and the height difference was slight but enough to force her onto the balls of her feet. Maybe for a moment Lena gained super strength, enough to press back against Kara's typically unyielding grip, enough to send her slightly staggering. 

Maybe, just maybe, Kara let her do it. 

Either way, Lena used that half second of momentum to press up into Kara, biceps flexing with the effort as she tilted up and crushed their lips together. 

Oh.

It wasn't gentle, and that bothered Kara. Lena's teeth clipped Kara's top lip, not on purpose and rough enough that it might've made anyone else bleed. That bothered her, too. 

She had apparently lost grip of Lena's arms, because she had somehow snaked them up around Kara's neck. One hand pressed firm against Kara's collarbone for half a second, then fisted tight, fingers closing on the collar of Kara's cape.

It wasn't clear at first if Lena was trying her best to keep Kara close or throttle her. It didn't really matter. Kara couldn't breathe either way.

"Kiss me back, goddamnit." For a moment, Lena faltered. Her words were harsh but her voice was too soft to cause harm to anyone besides Kara. Her head dipped slightly, eyes flickering across Kara's face as if she was searching for something undetectable. "I'm just— God, I'm just so tired, I'm just—"

Kara missed when she kissed Lena for the first time. She moved too fast and Lena flinched away instinctively and her mouth landed on the corner of her mouth inside. It didn't matter all that much, because it was too easy to tilt her head for the slight readjustment, aligning their mouths and swallowing the gasp that Lena let out when she gripped her waist with both hands.

Kara felt Lena start to mumble something into her lips, but she was too busy mapping out the soft bow of her top lip to let up. Everything was rough — the tug of Lena's hand at her collar, the nip of her teeth against her bottom lip — and Kara was doing her best to slow it all down but it was hard not to get sucked into the undertow of Lena's constant push push _push_.

Finally, finally, finally Lena pulled away, and the breath that she sucked in was loud, violently loud, thunderous in Kara's ears. She was thankful for it — they needed to stop, they needed to take a breath, they needed to talk — but it lasted only for the length of that breath. Too quickly, even for Kara and all of her super speed, Lena dipped her chin and pressed a quick kiss to Kara's cheek, then another, pressing them further and further down until her lips caught the curve of Kara's jaw. She moved backwards, let her tongue slip out and dip into the hollow of Kara's throat.

Now Kara truly couldn't breathe.

"Lena." She gasped it out, her hands slipping around to the small of Lena's back, fingers digging in and then lightening their grip immediately. "What are you doing—" 

Lena's teeth dug into her neck. Hard. Hard enough to make it clear that she knew she couldn't hurt Kara, even if she wanted to, even though she probably thought about hurting her on a regular basis in one way or another. It didn't hurt, but it was still startling enough to snatch Kara's words away from her, cutting off with a strangled noise as she tipped her chin back.

Fine. They should talk, but Kara settled for the next thing that her brain landed on, which was leaning forward until her torso fully pinned Lena to the wall, raising one forearm to rest behind her head. It was enough, though, just enough to tip their balance backwards even as Lena pressed kisses light as a feather just above the edging where her suit met her shoulder.

"What do you want from me?"

Lena tugged at her collar, keeping her mouth close to Kara's throat. She didn't answer, just pressed thoughtless kisses onto bare skin, dug her teeth in hard, traced her tongue across the unmarked skin too firmly to consider as soothing. Kara wasn't weak enough, or strong enough maybe, to ask it again. Lena tipped her head to the left, started on the other side of her neck and Kara gasped and pressed her hips forward and lost any momentary semblance of control.

The hand that wasn't propping them up had crept up Lena's back, fingers tracing her spine until they found the soft skin of the back of her neck. Slowly, tentatively, she scratched lightly at Lena's scalp and tangled her fingers delicately in her hair. Kara tugged once, experimentally, and almost grinned when Lena let out a soft moan. Almost. She tugged harder and it was enough to disrupt Lena from her fixation on Kara's throat, and that was enough to shift the balance completely.

Kara wasn't entirely sure what overcame her. Maybe it was Lena's stubborn silence, or the weight of weeks of pressure. Or maybe it was that dangerous feeling from before, taking hold completely for once. It didn't really matter, because whatever the explanation, Kara was now tugging Lena's hair enough to tip her chin up, forcing her lips away from her neck, forcing their eyes to meet. She wanted to say something, she was _dying_ to say something, but instead she kissed Lena again, again and again, hoping that maybe Lena could taste the words she was refusing to say out loud. She pressed those words into Lena's lips, into her cheeks, into her neck and her jaw. 

She wanted to tell Lena about the first time that they met. She wanted to tell her that when she first walked into her office she was ready to be intimidated. She'd heard the rumors and read the articles — both the trashy tabloids and the longform features — and she felt prepared for Lena Luthor. What she wasn't prepared for was _Lena_. She wasn't prepared for the soft way that Lena looked at her, so kind and so hopeful and so desperately, achingly defensive all at once. She wanted to tell Lena that she could see, even in those first few seconds, how hard she was trying. To be good, to get every word right, to protect herself from anything, even kindness. Kara wanted to tell Lena that she'd been trying to save her from the first moment she saw her, but she didn't, because it was stupid and cheesy and because saying it might break Kara in two.

So instead, she settled for tracing the hollow of Lena's collarbone with her thumb as she sucked her bottom lip into her mouth. Maybe that could be enough for now.

"Come on." Lena tugged hard on her cape again. "Come on, what are you doing, please just—"

She shoved back on Kara's chest, but when she pulled away Lena followed, stepping right back into her space and tugging her back down insistently, again and again.

"Don't you want this?" Lena gasped it insistently, desperately into Kara's lips. "Can't you just— can you just pretend to want this again just for, just for now, just for a moment, just for—"

The words hit Kara like a shock to her system, and in an instant she was stumbling backwards, so fast that she half-tripped over a balcony chair and half-floated to stand herself upright again. In her panic she put too much space between the two of them, which left too much time and too good of an angle to study the wild way that Lena was watching her — cheeks flushed, eyes bright, chest heaving with the effort of steadying her breaths.

"Lena, what do you want me to do?" Kara ran her hand nervously through her hair, gnawing at her lip as she crossed her arms protectively across her chest. "I mean, what do you—"

But Lena was already stalking across the balcony, already sending Kara skittering backwards again. It was predatory, the look in her eyes, filled with a keen hunger that Kara knew she had no hope resisting. And yet—

"Lena, please." She stumbled back further as Lena closed the distance between them. "Please talk to me, I mean, can't you—" Lena's hands pried her arms apart, although she didn't offer any resistance. "Come on, can't you just talk to me for—" Kara's back hit the door into Lena's office this time, her cap pressing into the glass. "Please, I'm sorry, I'm sorry—"

"Show me." That sneer was filling Lena's features again, and any tenderness Kara might have imagined in her features before was wiped clean. She leaned slowly into Kara's space, calculated, lifting her chin in a moment of examination that felt sharply cold. "Show me how sorry you are." 

Kara didn't have time to hesitate. Lena didn't give it to her. She reached around her waist and caught the handle to the door, pushing it in fiercely enough to send Kara half-stumbling, half-flying into the office. She clipped around Kara quickly, but not quick enough to keep her from seeing the way she clenched her jaw. 

"Come." Lena threw herself onto the couch, eyes burning. Her voice held the sharp tone of command that she normally reserved for the board room. After a moment of Kara standing frozen, eyes slightly bugged, she gestured vaguely to the open space beside her. "Come here."

She walked slowly, tentatively, the way one might approach a wild animal. With her hair sticking out slightly in back and the remains of her matte red lipstick smudged around the corner of her mouth, Lena looked something like a wild animal, her eyes narrowed as she watched Kara walk carefully, cape fluttering behind her.

Eventually, Kara came to stand several feet in front of the couch. Lena leveled a look — one of those _you've got to be fucking kidding me_ looks — and Kara shuffled further forward. Then Lena narrowed her eyes into an even firmer glare, and Kara settled for half-leaning, half-sitting on the arm of the couch. She crossed her ankles, then uncrossed them, then crossed them again. Then uncrossed them. Then crossed them again.

Finally, Lena reached out and pressed her hand to Kara's knee to still the restless fidgeting. Both of their gazes fixed on the place where her fingers pressed against Kara's suit. Lena shifted slightly, spreading her fingers slowly until they shifted into the inside of Kara's knee. Kara glanced at Lena, then back down, eyes dancing back and forth. She couldn't read Lena's expression as she traced her thumb up the inside of Kara's thigh, sending a slight shudder up her spine. Lena refused to look up at Kara, content instead to press her grip tighter, tighter, until the pads of her fingers were burning fiercely through the suit, searing Kara's skin.

"I thought this suit was supposed to make you brave." The words tugged Kara's eyes up from the hand on her thigh, and she watched in a sort of breathless rapture as Lena perched herself up onto a knee, suddenly too close and too warm and too _much_ in Kara's space. That hand didn't move, and then when it did move _that_ was too much, too. Lena trailed her fingertips up the inside of Kara's thigh, slowly but not gently at all. When Kara sucked in a shaky breath, Lena reached up to grab at her collar again, jerking it with a condescending tug. "But you're not all that brave when it comes down to it, are you?"

Lena jerked the collar again, and this time Kara just followed the motion, sliding off the arm of the couch and onto the cushion. The movement swapped their positions, giving the upper hand to Lena, who was practically leering as she shoved at Kara's chest, pushing her back into the white couch. She balled up her fist and shoved again, harder. Kara just lifted her chin in response — not as a challenge, but deferentially, baring her throat and looking Lena dead in the eye.

"What do you want?" Kara reached out a hand to touch Lena's cheek. She flinched away from the softness of the gesture as if it had scalded her skin. "What can I do?"

"Just—" For all her sharp ridicule, Lena couldn't say it out loud. Instead she slung a leg over Kara's lap, bracketing her thighs and leaning her weight into Kara's torso. "God, don't you know what I want?"

The third time they kissed hurt just as much as the first two times. Lena's hands pressed into Kara's shoulders and she melted under them, slipped her arms around Lena's waist and let herself collapse into whatever necessary impulse Lena was begging her to indulge. It went too fast — Lena leaned back to untuck her shirt on her own, but Kara reached up to finish the task on her own, fingers moving at twice a human speed to compensate for her own fumbling nerves.

"Wow." Kara couldn't help it. She hadn't really been trying to keep it cool throughout this entire — what was this? An encounter? A fight? It was hard to really say. Irregardless, she hadn't been trying to keep it cool and still her nerves were fried with the effort of keeping up with Lena while also not saying too much. But now, as she pushed back her button down shirt to reveal a surprisingly plain light blue bra, Kara was simply too fed up to keep herself from having one moment of honesty.

It didn't last long. Lena watched her for a moment, eyes guarded, before giving her another shove. This one was lighter, gentler.

"Enough sentimentality." She wondered whose benefit Lena was saying it for as she tugged at Kara's wrist, pulling her hand flush onto her waist and then arching when Kara ran her nails up her side. She took the note, tugged off her shirt and dropped her mouth to the soft curve of Lena's breast. That earned a slight gasp, so Kara reached up to slip the strap down off Lena's shoulder, gliding her tongue a little lower, seeking out somewhere a little more sensitive. That earned an actual moan, although Lena did her best to choke it back into her throat. Kara just bristled at the challenge, tugging the bra down completely and circling her tongue quickly and unceremoniously around Lena's nipple, letting her teeth gently follow.

Lena arched and gasped and grabbed at Kara's hair, so she repeated the motion, moving her tongue in a quick, filthy circle and nipping until she made a noise she couldn't hold back, gasped violently and fisted her fingers in Kara's hair and—

"Fuck, Kara, that's—"

It hit her like a wrecking ball. The sound of her name on Lena's lips was enough to send Kara hurtling away from Lena for the final time of the night. She moved so quickly that she toppled Lena to the carpet, moving just as fast to gently lift her back to the safety of the couch. Half-dressed and gasping for air, Lena looked off balance for the first time since Kara had touched down on her balcony. Her eyes searched Kara's face with plain bewilderment and betrayal.

"Why won't you do this for me?" Lena's voice cracked on the fifth word, her face slumping into dejected exhaustion. "Kara why can't you—"

"I'm sorry." Kara approached cautiously one last time, let her fingers brush gently across Lena's cheek before pressing her lips just as lightly to the top of her head. "I am so sorry."

"Why?"

"I can't take this from you, too."

Kara flew three extra laps around the city to clear her head. She pretended not to hear when Lena finally let her guard break down, crumpling the moment her boots left the balcony.


End file.
